The booted racket-tails are a small group of

hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the Family (biology), biological family Trochilidae. With approximately 366 species and 113 genus, genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but most species are found in Cen ...

s in the genus ''Ocreatus'' that was long considered to have only one species, ''O. underwoodii''. They are native to

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, Montane forest, montane, Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist forest characteri ...

edges in the South American

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

and

Maritime Andes The Venezuelan Coastal Range ( or ), also known as Venezuelan Caribbean Mountain System (), is a mountain range system and one of the eight natural regions of Venezuela, that runs along the central and eastern portions of Venezuela's northern coa ...

. They are relatively small (even compared to most other hummingbirds) and primarily iridescent green with white or rufous-buff leg-puffs ("boots"). The leg-puffs are more conspicuous in males, which also have a pair of dark bluish racket-shaped extensions to the tail.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Ocreatus'' was described by

John Gould John Gould (; 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist who published monographs on birds, illustrated by plates produced by his wife, Elizabeth Gould (illustrator), Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists, includ ...

in 1846. During the 19th century, several populations were described as different species, but since the mid-20th century authorities generally only recognized a single widespread species, ''O. underwoodii'', with several

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

. Research published in 2016, however, argued that three subspecies groups, ''addae'', ''annae'' and ''peruanus'', that are mostly

allopatric Allopatric speciation () – also referred to as geographic speciation, vicariant speciation, or its earlier name the dumbbell model – is a mode of speciation that occurs when biological populations become geographically isolated from ...

(only ''peruanus'' and ''underwoodii'' have ranges that are known to very locally come into contact) were sufficiently different for raising them to species level. The research results have been mostly accepted by the

International Ornithological Union The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...

, with more data required for the species status of Anna's racket-tail (''annae''), which they instead regard as a subspecies of ''O. addae''. The

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its ...

has yet to recognize the split and continue to place all in a single widespread species.

Species

The genus contains three species:

Taxonomy

Species

References

See also